I Am A Magnet for Weirdness

Strange people are drawn to me. They always have been. From the creepy less-than-mentally-stable guy that sat next to me in chorus my freshman year in high school and passed me notes declaring his undying love (most of them were verbatim from the movie Roxanne) to the man-child that sat down next to me at a doctor's appointment in college and grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go until the nurses came and literally pried us apart (the first and last time I went to a doctor in town instead of the campus physician), I have attracted a wide variety of off-color individuals. My mom always told me it was because I am too nice to people; given the title I have given my own blog, I don't really think I'm that nice a person. I just think I give off a scent or something that says, "Freaks are welcome here!"

Today's bizarre encounter is the best one I've had in years. I took Ainsley to the zoo to celebrate the first below-90-degree day in weeks. We go once a year, and a summer day where the high temperature barely approaches 84 is as good a chance as we are going to get. We were having a good time and had checked out some lemurs, the rhino, the cat house, some snakes, and the elephant show when Ainsley got hungry.

I stood there outside the elephant yard, hopelessly trying to read the zoo map. That thing sucks. Nothing seems to match up what you're actually looking at. I must have looked befuddled because an older man in a safari hat came up to me and offered to help.

I thought by his outfit that he worked for the zoo, so I let him help me. That was my first mistake. Turns out he wasn't a zoo employee; he was a retired teacher named Bob who was there with his also-retired-teacher wife, Judith, and their great-niece, Megan. Notice how much I know about this trio? That's because we spent A LOT of time with good ol' Bob today.

Once Bob heard we were headed to the LaRosa's close to the children's zoo, he asked if his family could tag along as their great-niece would like someone to talk to. I thought they just wanted to share a table with us at lunch. No, sir. He wanted us to spend the rest of our afternoon together.

I know! He was a complete stranger. Weird, huh? Hang on, kids, it gets weirder.

Megan doesn't eat actual food (just granola bars and ice cream, according to Bob) so they didn't order any food at LaRosa's. About halfway through mine and Ainsley's lunch, where I was guarding my wallet, convinced that the only reason they were lurking at our table was that they're really a family of gypsy pickpockets, they started talking about how much fun we were going to have at the baby wolf exhibit.

Judith leaned over about then and said, "If that's OK with you...Megan is an only child and loves to be with other kids. You can leave us at any time." Now I know how people get into cults. Nice older women who make you feel sorry for them and tell you you can leave at anytime, when you know good and well that you're in for the long haul.

I told her it was fine, and that it would be good for Ainsley to have a girl her age to play with for a little bit, and had convinced myself that this was a good thing. And Bob was such a gentleman; when Ainsley and I finished our lunch, he reached for our plates to get rid of them for us. But he didn't throw them away right away; he declared, "And now some for the old man!" and ate the 5 or 6 remaining bites on Ainsley's plate. OMG.

The thing I knew I had on my side is that Ainsley's isn't terribly fun at the zoo. She's not really there for the animals; she wants to ride the train and eat pizza and Dippin' Dots and complain about being tired. I knew that before too long Ainsley would fuss and we'd have an out.

But apparently Ainsley only whines at the zoo when it's just her and mommy. For about an hour, Ainsley had a ball with Megan, running through the children's zoo, looking for the elusive wolf family, and jumping like a kangaroo. If it hadn't been for the train, I think she would have played with Meg until sunset while I continued to get weirded out by Bob.

Ainsley wanted to ride the train, and Megan really wanted to go see something else, but Bob and Judith talked Megan into doing what Ainsley wants to do. By that time, they had talked to me long enough to know that I am a school librarian, and that this was our first week of vacation, and that we only come to the zoo once a year. I had also learned a lot about them; they never had kids, and once they retired they told everyone they were going to start a family and followed through with that by babysitting Megan when she's not in preschool. They bring her to the zoo at least once a week, often more than that (Bob said this made him an "expert" at the zoo and he showed his expertise by filling in everyone within earshot every detail of every exhibit we visited.) Then there were the things I didn't really need to know . Like how Bob wears long sleeves and pants and a hat outside because he has had a dozen or so cancerous moles burned off in the last couple of years. (He told me this just after he told me that a young mother carrying an infant without a sunhat was committing a crime and that he had to fight the urge to just go up to her and "snatch the baby out of her arms and cover it up.") And how Megan's parents were "super strict" with her, but when she's with them, they just give her license to do whatever she wants. Greaaaaaat. I am sure her parents love them for that. That, and if they knew that uncle Bob and aunt Judith trusted someone they knew for 15 minutes to go into the bathroom with their kid (when Ainsley had to go, Megan had to go, and Judith asked me if I could handle them both. I wouldn't have been surprised at that point if I'd come out and they had left us all for the circus.)

The first trip on the train was fun, but once is never enough for Ainsley when it comes to train rides. I thought this would be our out; Ains would ride the train a second time, and Meg, who didn't want to ride the train in the first place, would want to go do something else. But Bob and Judith, ever gracious, insisted Meg do whatever Ainsley wanted to do since she only comes to the zoo once a year.

But then Ainsley played her trump card: she can out-weird any 4-year-old. She proceeded to bump her rear against Megan's on the train, thinking this was asbsolutely hilarious. And she wanted Meg to make goofy faces at the animals with her. At Ainsley's pestering, Meg started to clam up a little and get whiny, and I couldn't have been more glad to have a sometimes-obnoxious kid.

Once Megan stopped talking, and begged to go back in her stroller, Bob and Judith suggested we part ways so that each girl could do what she wanted to do. And I immediately grabbed Ainsley by the hand and headed for the polar bears before anyone could change their mind.

The rest of our day was great; better, in fact, than our two previous attempts at zooligical good times. We wore ourselves out and came home just in time to eat sandwiches and get ready for her dance lesson.

Of course, Ainsley is already asking to go back to the zoo. But I don't think I should be the one to take her; I attract too much weird. And if there's anyplace where weird is in abundance, it's the zoo.